I often wonder whether or not anyone besides me thinks about why consumers have become "hot" for "natural" products? The thing is this: all kinds of companies say they make natural products and most of the time the government requires that they have ingredient labels on them. Why, then, are so many consumers using products that aren't even close to natural in any sense of the word despite having paid premium prices to get it?

If this were a double jeopardy question, I could have wagered the whole shebang. I know the answer to this one. Like many fiascos the government is involved in, they made a rule, which to a sensible person, is easy to understand. The problem appears when they are making the rule. It is easier to discuss a problem if we have a name for it, so, let's call this problem, "lobbyists."

Lobbyist cajole our duly elected representatives into writing loopholes and escape hatches into the rules that are intended to protect us from the lobbyists' employers. When they tell us about these rules, they only tell us the good parts. For example, as consumers we think we know that products with ingredients have to have labels that tell us what they are. That's the rule; unless you are a soap manufacturer. If you are a soap manufacturer you are not required to list your ingredients at all. Furthermore, if you choose to list your ingredients, you do not have to list them all or in any particular order.

When a soap manufacturer makes claims about their soap other than it will get you clean, there are more rules for them. If a soap manufacturer claims their soap will relieve your stress or cure your acne, then, they have to provide an ingredient list. Feeling safe? Don't! Most consumers think they know that the ingredient label is in the order of the quantities of ingredients starting at the most by volume and ending with the smallest ingredient by volume. Sounds like a good plan.

What you may not know is that after the 2% level ingredients can be listed in any order that the manufacturer chooses. There is no requirement that compels the manufacturer to reveal where the 2% level begins and they don't. (Honestly, my company doesn't either but that is because it is hard for me to fit all of the great stuff that's in my soap on there sometimes. But, that's different because we are not gonna short you on the goodies.) That means that if there are 10 ingredients on the list and 7 of them are less than 2%, that fourth ingredient is looking very plentiful when it is actually quite sparse.

Did you know that most of what consumers think of as soap, isn't? Your big recognizable names like Dial, Lever 2000, Dove, and Irish Spring aren't soap at all. They are detergent. You know, the stuff you wash your dishes and your clothes with. That is why their labels don't say soap anywhere on them. They are bath bars, beauty bars and just plain bars.

Ivory, now that is soap. Yes Virginia, there is still some sanity in the world, kinda. Ivory is in fact 99 44/100% pure. The question you should be asking yourself is pure what? The label doesn't really say.

This is what I know about Ivory soap, courtesy of The Straight Dope. The .56% is corrupted material made up of uncombined alkali, 0.11%; carbonates, 0.28%; and mineral matter, 0.17%. That seemed a little vague. So, I went to the source. This is what the manufacturer says:

"Ivory Soap is made of both vegetable oils and animal fats. Two different kinds of vegetable oils are used in Ivory - coconut oil and palm kernel oil. We add a preservative, less than of 1% of magnesium sulfate and sodium silicate, to keep the bar as white as its name."

There you have it! Ladies and gentlemen, the official ingredients in Ivory soap. Now that I've told you, do you feel like you now know exactly what is that bar? Don't feel bad. I know about soap and I don't either. Believe me when I tell you that it is no accident that Ivory is still a mystery and the government helped.

Basically, the ingredients list, while it isn't a total wash, it may as well be. We understand the language we speak because before we speak it we agree upon what the terms mean. Soap ingredient labels have agreements that the public, they were meant to inform, know nothing about, much less consented to.

In short, (I know it's a little late for that) the message from many manufacturers is clear. They are willing to sell their product at any cost; whether the price is a customer's allergic reaction spawned by lack of information or the company's integrity.